 January 2003 • Volume 9 • Number 1 |
A new resource can help your practice develop a strategy to comply with the administrative simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The AAFP collaborated with more than a dozen medical specialty organizations to create a Web site designed to ascertain the HIPAA-readiness level of practice management software vendors.
The directory, located at http://www.hipaa.org/pmsdirectory, allows vendors to self-report the HIPAA-readiness level of their products. Physicians can access this site free of charge to establish the readiness level of their own vendors or to review the compliance status of potential new software.
Currently the directory offers more than 80 vendor profiles, but organizers hope to amass information on up to 500 vendors.
"This is an effort to reach out to our members and their office managers and tell them to go online and look for their software vendors," said David C. Kibbe, M.D., director of health information technology in the AAFP Socioeconomics Division. "If your vendor isn't there, call and say, 'Please get listed in the directory.'"
Kibbe said it is likely some business processes will be interrupted in 2003 as a result of poorly implemented HIPAA compliance strategies by vendors, clearinghouses and health plans. "This is all about getting paid after Oct. 16, 2003. You need to know what your vendor can do for you to make your practice compliant." Direct any questions related to the directory to Kibbe at dkibbe@aafp.org.
Act now, warned Kibbe, or next September, you could find yourself without a vendor and "rushing to find a HIPAA-capable software vendor or product at the last moment, along with thousands of your colleagues."
FP Report is published by the
AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2003 by
American Academy of Family Physicians.